Terria shops for NBN suppliers

Summary:The consortium of Telstra's rivals known as Terria has started looking for companies to supply the products and services required to help build the federal government's $4.7 billion national broadband network.

The consortium of Telstra's rivals known as Terria has started looking for companies to supply the products and services required to help build the federal government's $4.7 billion national broadband network.

A Terria billboard in Canberra(Credit: Terria)

Terria and rival Telstra are seen as the two main competitors to build the network, but while Telstra has a long-standing relationship with network hardware supplier Alcatel-Lucent, Terria has not previously named suppliers that would assist it if it won the bid.

In advertisements published this morning, Terria said it wanted "construction and telecommunication vendors with experience in equipment supply, civil construction, project management, installation or maintenance" to send the company 600-word written capability statements.

Terria pointed out the NBN build would be one of the largest infrastructure projects Australia had undertaken, and would require close coordination with Australian construction and telecommunications vendors.

The telecommunications equipment market is dominated by giants such as Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel Networks, Ericsson, Juniper Networks and Nokia-Siemens Networks, while large Australian firms such as Leighton Holdings are active in the local construction market.